


Snap

by thedevilchicken



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Minor Injuries, Scars, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24289471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Thor has scars. Rocket wants to know where he got them.
Relationships: Rocket Raccoon/Thor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	Snap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nununununu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/gifts).



The first time he sees Thor take his shirt off, he doesn't get it. 

"Hey, I thought you were meant to be invulnerable and all that jazz," he says. He waves both paws at him, jazz hands or whatever like he learned on Quill's shitty homeworld, and Thor frowns for a second as he looks down at his own chest. There are scars on his skin and he looks at them like he ain't never seen a scar before, like it's the first time he's seeing them, then he shrugs and pulls his shirt back on. 

"I'm not invulnerable to everything, Rabbit," he says, and he smiles at him that way that makes Rocket's insides rearrange themselves without him even really trying. Thor's like that, the big blond jackass, making him feel stuff he ain't got no right making him feel. Rocket sometimes wishes he could hate him for it but hate seems kinda harsh and anyway, that's more energy than he's got going spare. 

The second time, Thor's just gotten out of the shower. He saunters around like he owns the place and he didn't just hitch a ride and then stick around when no one kicked him off the ship, and somehow it's no different when he's half naked; he struts right past Rocket with one of those big, warm smiles that makes Rocket feel like maybe he's having a heart attack, and when Rocket turns to say something smart, he sees. 

There's a cluster of scars on Thor's back, under where his stupid blond hair's still leaking water like he doesn't know what a towel is except to cover up his ballsack. There's a big scar right in the center, smaller ones like satellites around it, and the way he moves says it don't hurt at all, but man it looks like it should. 

"You get into a fight with a dragon or whatever it is you Ass-guardians do for kicks?" Rocket asks, and when Thor glances back over his shoulder, he stops. He turns, rubs his hands on the towel dangling from his hips and looks at Rocket like he's trying to figure something out. Rocket's pretty much an open book at this point, he thinks, what you see is what you get, so fuck if he knows what's going on inside Thor's head.

"I have fought dragons," Thor says. "Surtur had a dragon, bigger than this ship, all fiery and fearsome and...well, I cut its head off on my way out of Muspelheim." He pauses, like any of that bullshit makes any sense to Rocket. He puts his hands on his hips. "I suppose it could have harmed me, but it wasn't a dragon." Then he turns and he walks away, hopefully to put on some clothes. Not that Rocket really wants him to, but it's kinda hard to get anything done around a guy who ain't even dressed for the beach, let alone space travel. Especially when he looks like Thor does.

The third time, that's when he gets it. They've all just had their clothes all melted off of them by some kind of jerkass raygun - who the frack makes weapons that melt clothes? skin, sure, maybe bones, but _clothes_? - and after they've caught the guy and retrieved the thing and they're trudging back to the Benatar, Nebula, God love her, eyes them both like them being naked doesn't even enter her mind. She's thinking about something else and Rocket understands her even less than Thor.

"What's with you, Jigsaw?" Rocket asks. "You don't like what you see, you just find someplace else to look." 

She looks at Rocket. She looks at Thor. Then she turns and she strides away with the thing in her hand like she did all the work to get it and the two of them just trail along behind her in the midst of the staring crowd. Rocket's saying shit like, "What, you ain't ever seen a naked guy before?" when he glances at Thor - big mistake, _huge_ mistake, is everything about the guy real hot? - and he gets it. He sees what Nebula just saw. 

They match. Their scars match. _Huh_.

"Hey, Sparkles," Rocket says, when they get back on board, once he's given Quill the finger and all three of them have otherwise ignored him till he sulks. "You ever gonna tell me how you got those scars?"

Thor heads toward the showers. They've got the remnants of their melted clothes stuck all over them, and it looks like Nebula had the same idea; she's way ahead of the two of them already, bits of her favorite suit sluicing off of her as she grimaces at the drain. Rocket knows the feeling; he's got another suit, sure, but he liked that one. He's just glad it didn't take his gun, or Thor's ax, or any pieces off of any of them. He's got a few extras, just like Nebula has.

Thor looks at him as they wait their turn. Thor sits on his bare ass in the corridor with bits of leather and stuff stuck to his skin and Rocket steps in and peels a patch off of his collarbone, wrinkles his snout at it and throws it over his shoulder. It catches Drax across one muscly bicep - how'd they wind up with two guys on board who look like they spend their lives in the gym but really, really don't? - and Rocket holds up a finger like _so help me, if you say a single thing right now..._ Somewhere along the way Drax must've gotten an iota of sense through his thick skull 'cause he walks on. He doesn't say a word.

"So, where'd you get those scars?" Rocket asks, looking down at him, which almost never happens but he figures he'll take advantage while he can. He crosses his arms over his chest and he narrows his eyes like that'll seem intimidating, except he's naked with bits of flame-retardant orange fabric sticking to his fur, so it kinda ruins the look. 

"We have a ritual on Asgard," Thor says. He frowns. "Well, we _had_ a ritual on Asgard. I suppose it's someone else's job to figure out if we still have one now."

Rocket kicks him in the shin. "Less moping, more explaining," he says. 

"Well. We had a ritual. Once I was of age, I went through this ritual. It reveals certain things." 

"Like ugly-ass scars?"

"Well, I lived quite a long time without them." 

"How long?"

"I went several hundred years without a single one."

"You ain't making no sense. Some ritual gave you scars a hundred years later?"

"We keep detailed records. So that our people can find their matches."

"Matches?"

"Their soulmates."

"Their _soulmates_?"

Nebula turns off the shower. She saunters out with a towel wrapped around her, gives them both a hard look that's either _sort your shit out_ or _I could kill you with a spoon_ , and once she's gone, Rocket frowns at Thor again. 

"Where did you get the scars, Twinkles?"

Thor smiles wryly. "From my soulmate," he says. "I felt each one of them and I'm very sorry that I couldn't stop it, but I didn't even know who it was, never mind _where_." He picks himself up. He rubs one big hand over Rocket's head, over his ears, fondly, the way if anyone else did Rocket would be tearing their lips off right about now. "Don't worry, Rabbit. There's really no obligation on your part." 

Then he walks away into the shower and all Rocket can think as he stares after him is, _Soulmate? That kinda sounds like bullshit_. He's sceptical, but then he figures he's a whole planet's worth of scepticism in one furry little frame.

They tiptoe around it for days, like either of them's any use at tiptoeing. They stomp all over each other's toes about it, Rocket guesses, looking at each other, frowning, looking away, walking away, not saying a word unless it's _pass the salt_ and he can't even do that without Drax piping up about cholesterol or some fuckin' thing, like he even knew what that was before they went to Earth and saw some weird infomercial that Rocket's threatened to download to hard copy specifically so he can shove it up his ass. 

And then, one day, who even knows how long it's been 'cause he sure ain't counting, Rocket trips. He goes down, hard, catches his chin on the way and fuck if he don't knock himself out cold. When he wakes up, he's on his bunk and there's Thor, the big lug, running some beeping med device over Rocket's chin, and when Rocket interrupts, pushes it away, he narrows his eyes as he looks up at him. He reaches up, gets the pad of his forefinger to the place under Thor's chin where there's a fresh pink scar standing out on his skin. Not big. Kinda tiny, but it's there. 

"Well, damn," Rocket says. "Guess that shit wasn't a joke." 

Thor shrugs, like a whole fuckin' mountain might shrug. "No, it really wasn't," he replies.

"Guess I gotta be more careful now, huh?"

There's a twinkle in Thor's eye that Rocket's pretty sure for once ain't lightning. "Don't you find scars dashing?" he asks.

Rocket sits up. His legs dangle from the bed. "What, you like mine?" he replies. 

And what he doesn't expect is the way Thor leans over, reaches out and spreads one hand over his back. He doesn't expect the way Thor's fingertips trace all the places they shoved shit into him back in the day, over the top of his coveralls. It makes him tingle. It makes him wish he had a raygun that melts clothes.

"I like _you_ Rabbit," Thor says. "The truth is, I didn't need our scars to match to know that." 

And when he smiles, Rocket's insides feel all weird the way they always do when he smiles like that. When Rocket climbs up onto Thor's treetrunk thighs that feel like maybe he's part Groot in there somewhere, when he nuzzles at Thor's throat, nips real lightly with his teeth and makes him laugh and wrap his freakish huge arms around him, he feels it again. Maybe that's how his kind know their soulmate, or maybe it's all a whole cargo bay full of bullshit. 

Either way, he figures he'll make the most of it.


End file.
